Infants and other incontinent individuals wear absorbent articles such as diapers and incontinent briefs to receive and contain discharged urine and other body exudates. Such absorbent articles function both to contain the discharged materials and to isolate those materials from the body of the wearer and from the wearer's articles and bed clothing. Disposable absorbent articles having many different basic designs are known in the art. For example, U.S. Reissue Pat. No. Re. 26,152, entitled “Disposable Diaper,” which issued on Jan. 31, 1967, to Duncan et al., describes a basic disposable diaper structure that has achieved wide acceptance and considerable commercial success. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,151,092, entitled “Absorbent Article With Dynamic Elastic Waist Feature Having a Predisposed Resilient Flexural Hinge,” which issued on Sep. 29, 1992, to Buell et al., describes an absorbent article having an elastic waist feature for improving dynamic fit as well as improving containment characteristics, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,067, entitled “Disposable Diaper Having Shirred Ears,” which issued on Aug. 15, 1989, to Wood, et al., describes a disposable diaper with elastic side panels that are intended to overlie the hips of the wearer. Those elastic structural elements are intended to permit expansion and contraction of the article in response to the wearer's motions and to maintain the fit of the absorbent article about the wearer during use.
A number of improvements to the basic Duncan et al. structure have been developed over the years. Some of those improvements have been directed to providing a better fit of the article on the body of the wearer and to reducing the likelihood of leakage of discharged materials between the absorbent article and the legs of the wearer. Accordingly, such absorbent articles have been provided with elastic leg openings, elastic waist elements, and elasticized side panels for improved fit. In that regard, one such improvement that has also achieved wide acceptance and substantial commercial success is an elasticized leg cuff structure that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,003, entitled “Contractable Side Portions For Disposable Diaper”, which issued on Jan. 14, 1975, to Buell.
Although several structural modifications and other changes for improving the fit and for reducing the incidence of leakage with such articles have been developed, those problems have not been fully solved. For example, it has been found that absorbent articles having elastic closures still often have a tendency to gap away from the body of the wearer during use. Those continuing problems have been found to be caused largely by the motions of the wearer during use of the article. Thus, as the wearer changes position, there can be significant dimensional changes in the wearer's waist, stomach, hips, buttocks, and legs. Such dimensional changes are particularly noticeable in infants. The circumference of the infant from hip to hip through the buttocks is much bigger than through the front waist and stomach area. Thus, as the wearer moves, the articles often are unable to expand and contract in proportion to the circumference of the wearer in the hips through the buttocks, caused primarily by their construction using materials that are relatively unaccomodating to such body changes by virtue of being made from relatively inelastic materials. Thus, the article tends to sag, to gap, and to slip to a degree that fit is degraded and the likelihood of leakage is increased. Further, because the article often cannot expand sufficiently to accommodate wide ranges of dimensional changes, the result is pressure that is applied to the body that can cause skin marking and wearer discomfort.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide an absorbent article having elastic features that provide better fit. It would also be desirable to provide an absorbent article having improved dynamic fit relative to the body of the wearer, particularly in the waist and high areas. Further, it would be desirable to provide an absorbent article having a structure that more closely adapts to the dimensional changes in the wearer's body resulting from wearer movements. It would also be advantageous to provide an absorbent article with side panels with a structure that reduces or changes the tensile forces within the side panel to improve the fit of the article.